Seat of Our Pants

We’re hitting the road again in less than a week!

We think.

No, we’re not leaving Nepal, exactly. We are lacing up our boots, locking our apartment door and hitting the hills (aka some of the highest mountains in the world) for some amazing trekking. October and November are two of the nicest months to trek in Nepal and it would be silly for us to miss the opportunity while living a short jump away from the most of the trail-heads.

Martin listed our trekking options in this past post. They fall in two categories. The first type is the trekking peak. These are mountains that people like us – experienced trekkers but not mountaineers – can reach the summit of. The problem with these peaks is two-fold for me. First, it’s expensive to trek these peaks as you need a guide, porters, tents, permits, etc. Secondly, I honestly don’t think I want to wait at another base camp again with AMS while Martin makes a glorious run for a summit. AMS, or Acute Mountain Sickness, struck me on our last big trek, the Stok Kangri summit in northern India. As bad as feeling faint and vomity was, the real bummer was that I couldn’t make the summit with Martin.

The second option is the two base camp treks: the Mount Everest base camp and the Annapurna base camp. Obviously neither of these will take us to a summit (I’ve forbade Martin, under the penalty of something unmentionable, to ever attempt Everest’s peak), but they’ll be difficult trekking nonetheless. They also happen to be the most popular treks around, so we could be just two of thousands that trek up these monsters this month. The upside of these treks is that they can be done on our own. There are numerous tea houses along the route that house and feed trekkers so no guide/porter/tent = a much cheaper trek.

I’ve been leaning toward the Everest Base Camp – for one very selfish reason. I’m sure I can do it. AMS will most likely rear it’s ugly head, but the elevation at the base camp is about 5500 meters (just over 18,000 feet), which was an elevation I was able to reach on Stok Kangri.

Trek departure date: Wednesday of next week!

It looks like it’s about time to make a decision, huh?

Photo by Kerem Barut

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